Kiva: The Finland Alternative Against School Aggression in Bulgaria]

The writing of this article was provoked by another case of aggression against a teacher in a Bulgarian school. For the purposes of the analysis, a “case study” method was used to “dissect” the school situation that took place. The latter facilitates the derivation of the specific factors for the registered event. Through the code of linguistic communication, inductive generalizations stood out, which were related to deductive ones, generated by secondary analysis of data from the sociological research conducted in our country. The considered situation focuses on the Finnish school bullying intervention program KiVa, developed by the University of Turku, understood as an alternative to reducing school aggression and victimization. Besides, it also builds a safe and secure school environment.

Technology of forecasting in the professional activity of future applicants for higher pedagogical education

The article identifies the need for the formation of prognostic competence of applicants for higher pedagogical education in accordance with the requirements of the concept of development of pedagogical education and professional standard. The authors propose a structural scheme of forecasting activities, define the concept, purpose, objectives of the course "Technology of forecasting in professional activities" and provide guidelines for the study of individual topics based on theoretical predictions. As part of the course, students of higher pedagogical education master the technology of introducing educational forecasting on the example of educational activities in physics. Educational forecasting is defined in the course as a specially organized cognitive process by the teacher, as a result of which students on the basis of theoretical knowledge predict phenomena and facts unknown to them. Particular attention in the study of the course is paid to the structure of theoretical predictions based on the deductive study of the structural components of physical knowledge and on the basis of inductive generalizations from experiments. The article presents examples of studying the phenomenon of electric resonance, the law of inertia, the characteristics of the electrostatic field based on prediction. The idea of developing students' ability to think hypothetically is the central idea of the course. Applicants for higher pedagogical education during the study of the course gain confidence that the process of constructing a hypothesis based on theoretical models is especially valuable for the development of hypothetical thinking. The article presents the results of research conducted during the study of the course on the problem of organizing the educational activities of students by teachers on the basis of forecasting. The research results confirm the relevance, necessity and expediency of the proposed course not only for applicants for higher pedagogical education, but also for further professional development of teachers of natural sciences and mathematics, namely the development of prognostic competence.

Value-based Essentialism: Essentialist Beliefs About Social Groups With Shared Values

Psychological essentialism has played an important role in social psychology, informing influential theories of stereotyping and prejudice as well as questions about wrongdoers’ accountability and their ability to change. In the existing literature, essentialism is often tied to beliefs in shared biology—i.e., the extent to which members of a social group are seen as having the same underlying biological features. Here we investigate the possibility of “value-based essentialism” in which people think of certain social groups in terms of an underlying essence, but that essence is understood as a value. Study 1 explored beliefs about a wide range of social groups and found that both groups with shared biology (e.g., women) and shared values (e.g., hippies) elicited similar general essentialist beliefs relative to more incidental social categories (e.g., English-speakers). In Studies 2-4, participants who read about a group either as being based in biology or in values reported higher general essentialist beliefs compared to a control condition. Because biological essences about social groups have been connected to a number of downstream consequences, we also investigated two test cases concerning value-based essentialism. In Study 3, beliefs about both shared biology and shared values increased inductive generalizations about the social group relative to control, but in Study 4, only the shared biology condition reduced blame for wrongdoing. Together these findings join with recent work to support a broader theoretical framework of essentialism about social groups that can be arrived at through multiple pathways, including, in the present case, shared values.

Young Children’s Use of Gender for Inductive Generalizations about Biological and Behavioral Characteristics: The Influence of Gender Categories and Gender Stereotypes

Using a triad inductive reasoning task, we examined the influence of gender category information, gender stereotypes, and gender salience on young children’s (N = 72; 36 to 69 months of age) generalizations concerning novel biological and behavioral characteristics. Prior to the inductive generalization task, children heard vignettes in which a teacher either engaged in gender stereotyping (Stereotype condition), grouped children according to gender (Salience condition), or grouped children in a gender-neutral manner (Neutral condition). Children generalized on the basis of gender more often in the Stereotype condition than in the Neutral condition, but older children made gender-based inductions at above chance levels in the Neutral condition and for behavioral traits in the Salience condition. Stereotyping influenced gender-based reasoning, but did not appear to be necessary among older preschool children.

Young Children’s Inductive Generalizations about Similarities between Siblings or Classmates

This study investigated 3- to 5-year-olds’ inductive generalizations about similarities between siblings. Children were presented with contrasts in appearance and either sibling or classmate status and asked to generalize either biological properties or behaviors. Performance did not differ from chance for judgments about siblings, but children generalized on the basis of appearance more than classmate status. Thus, young children do not necessarily expect siblings to share biological and behavioral characteristics, but do regard sibling status as different from an arbitrary social relationship such as classmate status.

Trying Again and Again: Multiple Repetitions in Early Modern Reports of Experiments on Snake Bites

This essay deals with a conspicuous feature of early modern experimental reports: references to multiple repetitions. I examine an episode from the history of research on venomous snakes, the dispute between Francesco Redi and Moyse Charas about the cause of death from viper bites. I identify different kinds of repetitions that are described and specify the various different roles that are attributed to repetitions in experimental reports. I argue that repetition (the successive reproduction of one's own experimental trials) should be distinguished from replication (reproducing other investigators' experiments). At first, replications played hardly any role in the exchange, but references to repetitions were crucial to show that contingencies had been obviated, to support inductive generalizations, and to specify the exact cause of an experimental effect. Notably, it appears that the replication of effects by different experimental means was not part of the repository of methodological notions that Redi and Charas brought to bear on their experiments. Reruns and repetitions with variations (including complementary trials) bore the epistemic weight.